Welcome to our Factor Five Five Factor Preview of Clemson at Wake Forest. No matter how this happens, this game is conveniently prepackaged to reinforce of any your chosen prejudices about the ACC. Close game? Shitty ACC offenses! Blowout? Further proof that [insert losing coach] is an overrated paycheck-stealing stuffed shirt! Shootout? See how inconsistent this conference is!

It’s an Escher drawing no matter how you look at it: inscrutable, meaningless, and will likely give you a headache. It’s also on tonight, meaning you will watch it.

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity. Well, gakked straight from the Clemson Football team’s website comes this extraordinarily interesting tidbit:

Clemson owns 56 wins over Wake Forest in history, its second highest victory total over any opponent. Clemson has 63 wins over South Carolina.

Gamecocks fans, you’re welcome. Over the past five years Clemson has gone 3-2 against Wake, including a 1-2 record against them at BB&T Field, officially the most antiseptic name of any stadium in the known college universe. If they try to bully the Wakesters around tonight at home, they might find themselves overdrawn with no chance for bailout! Topical humor! Get Leno on the phone he’s gonna LOVE this one!

The Nebulous State of Dubious Statistical Validity for Wake Forest: Six, the number of turnovers Wake had two weeks ago against Navy, and an aberration that still left them with the fifth best TO margin in the nation. Grobe sexy, that is, as is a defense that can be devilishly hard to read at times thanks to the Demon Deacons continued use of zone blitzes, fancy binders for their book reports, really nice business cards, and every other possible little edge they care to take in the effort to remain competitive at their size. They have a credit for 42 cents at this casino, and they’d like to use it.

Advantage: Wake Forest, thanks to Clemson being generous with the ball. (79th in the nation in TO margin.)

: Wake Forest: You’ve been factor’d!

Category Two: Mascot:

You can’t tell, right you can’t tell right COOOL that’s good lemme tell you how we’re gonna do this we’re gonna put on some music and call my friends and we’re just gonna rage that’s right we’re gonna RAGE and if we have to we have Steve’s number and we’ll just call him and get some more hey have you seen Underworld it’s unreal vampires are awesome I feel so STRONG on this shit is my nose bleeding OH SHIT MY NOSE IS BLEEDING

Advantage: Clemson.

Clemson, you’ve been factor’d!

Category Three: Aura. Clemson really, really needs this game to maintain some semblance of competitive edge in the ACC. Even factoring in the powerful Tommy Bowden Bitch Mentality, this means they should, according to the script, begin their comeback toward an 8 win season, forcing Clemson to embrace the meh and re-up with Bowden, who will dampen expectations, then succeed beyond them, and thus prolonging Clemson’s turn on the Wheel of Life with Bobby Bowden and keeping them from a hypothetical trip to coaching nirvana.

Advantage: Clemson.

Clemson, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Four: Names. Wake Forest has a guy named “Junior Petit-Jean”, which loosely translates to “Little John, Jr.” Aw, look! He has his own pimp cup!

Advantage: Wake Forest

Wake Forest, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Grudges? Scores to settle? Sheer cussedness? Wake Forest are far too tasteful to hold grudges. Rather, they shall pip away and give one for the Black and Yellow, yes they will! Clemson, meanwhile, beat them 41-10 last year, so grudgery doesn’t really apply here, but again: they really, really need this game.

Clemson, you’ve been factor’d!

EDSBS FACTOR FIVE FIVE FACTOR PREVIEW SUM: Clemson, You’ve Been Factor’d! Reminder: THIS MEANS BET ON THE OTHER TEAM.